A brief analysis of the innovation of marketing strategies in the Hotel Management Industry. In the context of digitization, hotel management has undergone many changes, and hotel marketing activities have slowly exposed some problems. From the perspective of digitization, management, analyze the existing problems of hotel marketing strategies. Which stand mainly manifested in the strong arbitrariness of hotel price strategies, relatively single marketing channels, and service strategies that need to improve. Combining the problems, three innovative strategies stand offered, namely, formulating a scientific price strategy, expanding marketing channels, and formulating a suitable product strategy.
Here are the articles to explain, A brief analysis of the innovation of marketing strategies in the Hotel Management Industry!
With the advent of the digital age, digital technology is playing an increasingly important role in people’s work and life. Many of the content that people come into contact with in their work and life can present in digital form. Digital technology has not only improved work efficiency but also brought many conveniences to people’s lives. Hotels are a scene that people often come into contact with, and hotel scenes involve activities such as travel, conferences, and exhibitions.
With a large number of hotels, how to attract the attention of consumers and let them choose their hotels to stay in is the core issue that hotel marketers need to think about. Digital technology has brought new ideas to hotel management, marketing, and marketers can use marketing technology to innovate marketing strategies to attract more consumers to stay. Following this idea, this article analyzes the innovation of hotel management and marketing strategies.
Understanding of hotel management and marketing strategies
Understanding of hotel management
Hotel management belongs to the category of management. It produces to adapt to changes in the hotel business. With the help of the academic foundation of management. The methods of management exist applied to hotel management activities, and a systematic hotel management practice has slowly existed formed. Hotel management consists of multiple parts, including hotel lobby management, guest room management, and catering management.
Lobby management is an important part of hotel management. The first thing consumers come into contact with before staying in the hotel is the lobby, and the last thing they come into contact with when they leave is the lobby. The front hall of the hotel inhabits an important position in the composition of the entire hotel, so hotel managers need to invest sufficient energy in the management of the front hall.
Guest rooms are the foundation of the existence of a hotel, and managers need to ensure that guest room management is at a high level. Catering management includes many aspects, including operation and management, technology and art, etc., and has the characteristics of a short production process, various business content, and large income flexibility.
Understanding of hotel marketing strategies
The hotel marketing strategy belongs to the category of hotel management. It takes the needs of consumers as the starting point and obtains consumer-related information through legal channels to carry out targeted business activities. The content of the marketing strategy specifically includes products, prices, channels, promotions, services, and other aspects. Hotel managers should take into account the actual needs of the main business and execute specific marketing strategies to improve hotel management activities, thereby improving the effectiveness of hotel management.
Hotels are different from other portable consumer goods. They cannot present intuitively in front of consumers. Some consumers who are far away from the hotel can only understand the basic information of the hotel through relevant online advertising or reviews on some online media platforms, but if you want to get the hotel’s service experience, you can only consume it in person. The sense of experience that consumers gain after personal consumption largely determines whether they will consume again, so hotel managers must formulate a comprehensive marketing strategy to gain consumer recognition of hotel services and attract them to continue their stay next time.
However, in the digital age, consumers can use digital technology to sense the service level of hotels in advance. With the help of digital technology, hotel managers can present the scenes inside the hotel in the form of VR, allowing consumers to view the internal environment of the hotel more intuitively, thereby improving the effect of hotel marketing.
The importance of hotel marketing strategy
Help to position core consumer groups well
Through the formulation of scientific marketing strategies, management, hotel managers can accurately locate the core consumer groups of the hotel, understand the distribution of consumer groups, but the main resources into the core consumer groups, and concentrate the main strength of the hotel service team to provide services that satisfy the main consumers. After identifying the main consumer groups, hotel managers can analyze and understand the living habits and interests of the core consumer groups, sort out their needs for hotel services, and then combine these data to formulate marketing strategies to improve the quality of hotel services and obtain higher economic benefits.
Accurately locate the image of the hotel
A comprehensive marketing strategy can help hotel marketers accurately locate the image of the hotel, and then clarify what position hotel services need to occupy in the hearts of consumers, and what strategies to adopt to meet consumer requirements. Under the direction of the marketing plan, hotel marketers can analyze the hotel’s building specifications, service performance, decoration types, etc. And make related reforms based on consumer feedback to be as close as possible to consumers’ psychological expectations. So that the hotel’s image can imprint in the hearts of consumers and win a good reputation for the hotel.
Formulate a scientific marketing plan
Under the guidance of marketing strategy, hotel marketers can clarify the direction. And the focus of hotel marketing activities, formulate a comprehensive marketing plan and enable marketing activities to carry out effectively. Under the framework of the marketing plan, hotel managers can promote hotel-related information on a wider scale through media promotion, character exchanges, shows, word-of-mouth publicity, etc. Establish direct contact with target consumers, and when the hotel launches a new product. Relevant information can push consumers promptly to gain consumers’ favor for the hotel.
Problems in hotel marketing strategy
The arbitrariness of the hotel price strategy is strong
At present, the price strategies adopted by some hotels are very arbitrary, which has affected the hotel marketing effect. The room prices of many hotels use different pricing in the off-season and high-season. The prices in the high season are relatively high, while the prices in the low season are relatively low. In addition, in the fierce hotel competition, hotel managers will deliberately use lower prices than competitors to attract consumers to stay and obtain more customers, but this price model can easily disrupt the market pricing model.
When facing group guests and individual guests, hotel managers will also give different prices based on the number of guests and check-in time. This kind of pricing model with strong arbitrariness lacks a fixed price mechanism. After consumers check in, the hotel will default to the consumer’s choice of breakfast, and the breakfast fee will add to the room rate. But not all consumers are willing to choose to provide breakfast as a service, especially some consumers who need to get up early to catch a plane. They don’t have time to eat breakfast at all, but breakfast includes in their room rate. This approach is a waste for consumers.
When consumers are aware of this problem. They will dissatisfy with the hotel, thereby reducing their willingness to stay in the hotel next time. Some hotels will also compare the price strategies of competitors. The location of competitors is convenient. There are also many benefits, such as good transportation conditions, beautiful scenery, and rich food types. These conditions are completely worth higher prices. However, the above-mentioned hotels use prices that are much higher than the quality of service they provide. This is unacceptable and will adversely affect the hotel’s brand image and cause the consequences of reduced customer traffic.
Hotel marketing channels are relatively single
At present, the marketing channels of some hotels are relatively single, basically using traditional marketing methods. And relatively few new marketing methods stand used. Specifically, most of the booking methods used are online booking, telephone booking, etc., and the sales models used are cooperative distribution by travel agencies, promotion, and sales by hotels themselves, etc. However, driven by digital technology, some new sales channels have emerged one after another, and the more representative ones are GDS (global distribution system) and so on.
However, hotel managers are not fully aware of the important role of new marketing channels and do not actively adopt these new marketing channels, but stick to traditional marketing channels. Traditional hotel marketing channels disconnect from hotel marketing practices. Driven by digital technology, hotel management is facing new opportunities, but at the same time, it is also facing new challenges. Hotel managers who cling to traditional marketing channels cannot cope with these new changes. This approach is not only not conducive to the improvement of hotel marketing, but also leads to a decline in hotel marketing capabilities.
In the digital age, the role of digital platforms is becoming more and more important. Digital platforms can effectively aggregate consumer data and provide hotel managers with the data needed for marketing activities. However, using digital platforms to analyze consumer data requires a certain technical foundation. And there are relatively few hotel managers with data analysis technology. So using digital platforms as a channel to carry out hotel marketing activities has certain difficulties.
The hotel service strategy needs to improve
A service strategy is an important part of a hotel’s marketing strategy. A perfect service strategy can enhance consumer satisfaction and increase the probability of consumers staying again next time. However, at present, there are some problems with the service strategies of some hotels. Which has hurt the hotel’s management activities. The problems in service strategy mainly manifest in the following three aspects.
The grassroots employees of the hotel lack marketing awareness.
Full-time marketing is a more popular marketing strategy. Many hotel managers are implementing this marketing strategy. This strategy requires any hotel employee to have a sense of service that is “marketing all the time” during their work. This kind of marketing strategy can achieve good results. But there are not many hotels that adopt this kind of marketing awareness. Many grassroots employees of hotels believe that marketing is only the full-time work of marketers. And there is no need for other personnel to do marketing activities.
In addition, full marketing requires hotel employees to solve problems promptly, but grassroots employees, lack corresponding authority. When encountering sudden problems, they can only report to their superiors first. And only after obtaining authorization can they start to deal with it. Which can easily delay the timing and miss the best processing time.
There is a lack of incentive mechanisms for full marketing.
Full-staff marketing needs to have corresponding incentive mechanisms, and most of the incentive mechanisms used are at the material level. However, in real work, only marketers can get corresponding material incentives. And although other grassroots employees of the hotel have participated in full-time marketing activities. They have no chance to get material rewards. This situation has greatly suppressed the enthusiasm of grassroots employees to participate in full-staff marketing. Thus affecting the development of the service strategy of “full-staff marketing”.
The marketing level of marketing managers needs to improve.
Many of the managers in the hotel marketing department promote from the group of old employees. These old employees often lack marketing experience and have weak marketing awareness. In hotel marketing work, they often fail to grasp the focus of marketing activities. And the services provided cannot completely satisfy consumers, which affects the hotel’s operating income. Facing this problem, these managers urgently need to improve their marketing level.
Innovation of hotel marketing strategies
Formulate a scientific price strategy
In hotel marketing activities, price is always an important influencing factor. Under different time and space conditions, consumers’ sensitivity to price is different. So hotel marketers need to adopt a variety of price strategies to meet the needs of different consumer groups. Specifically, the following types of objects need to consider when formulating a price strategy.
The price strategy of individual and tourist customers.
Individual and tourist customers pay more attention to the content of the price strategy. They will focus on comparing the hotel’s price strategy before choosing the hotel to stay in. After multiple comparisons, they will choose a hotel with a favorable price strategy to stay in. Therefore, hotel marketers need to analyze consumer groups and formulate differentiated preferential policies around individual and tourist customers.
For example, a lucky draw can be held among individual customers. And the winning individual customers can get free breakfast and lunch. Which can not only increase the satisfaction of individual customers but also increase the consumption income of catering. For tourist customers, first-time tourist customers can be provided with a free one-night stay, and at the same time. They can be provided with a good experience through high-quality service, which will help attract them to stay again.
The price strategy of network channel customers.
When many hotels set prices, they will adopt the practice of bundled consumption. That is, consumers need to pay for catering and parent-child paradise fees at the same time when paying for guest rooms. This price strategy has been resisted by some consumers. Therefore, hotel marketers can reform the practice of bundled consumption and give discounts to consumers who use online channels to pay, allowing them to pay for the room separately without having to pay for other expenses. . Through such a price strategy, the effect of hotel marketing can be improved.
Provide more favorable food and beverage prices.
It is necessary to combine the consumption habits and payment capabilities of different consumer groups to provide highly preferential food and beverage prices. For example, for group wine banquets, the price can be appropriately lowered under the premise of ensuring no loss, and room fees can provide discounted. For general individual customers, the amount of food they can enjoy can be appropriately increased.
Expand marketing channels
Channels are a very important element in hotel marketing strategies. Creating unblocked marketing channels can effectively improve the effectiveness of hotel marketing and achieve better economic benefits. At present, the marketing channels used more in the hotel industry are direct sales channels, network channels, and distribution channels. With the development of digital technology, hotel marketing activities are facing a new environment. And it is necessary to expand marketing channels and improve marketing effectiveness. Specifically, expanding hotel marketing channels can be started in the following aspects.
Revolutionize the reservation system for room check-in.
Most hotels have their booking systems, but these booking systems have been used for a long time, making it difficult to meet the booking needs of consumers in the digital age, and innovation is needed. In the digital age, hotels need to introduce advanced digital platforms to take advantage of the advantages of the platforms to provide consumers with a convenient choice platform. For example, you can use GDS (Global distribution system) to provide consumers with a convenient hotel query platform, allowing consumers to better book hotels.
Establish interactive digital marketing channels.
With the development of digital technology, people use social media more and more frequently, and work and life are also inextricably linked to social media. Social media has the characteristics of interactivity and node-based. Hotel marketing activities need to combine these characteristics of social media and use evolving digital technology to promote interactive digital marketing activities so that hotel brands can be continuously promoted in social media communication.
Strengthen contacts with network distributors.
Online distributors can effectively increase the visibility of hotels and increase the occupancy rate of hotel customers. Hotel marketers need to strengthen cooperation with distributors and use online distributors to promote hotels. Online distributors include various websites, such as, etc., as well as various search engines. Such as Baidu Encyclopedia, Sogou Encyclopedia, etc.
Formulate appropriate product strategies
What the product strategy needs to solve is the problem of consumer demand. Hotel marketers need to combine the actual needs of consumers to formulate appropriate product strategies. Before formulating a product strategy, hotel marketers need to conduct a detailed analysis of consumer groups. Understand the preferences of different consumer groups, and provide differentiated products. Specifically, when formulating a hotel product strategy. It is necessary to analyze the needs of core consumer groups and individual customer groups.
The product strategy of the core consumer group.
The core consumer groups of the hotel industry are commonly used in government reception and business meeting scenarios. For the former, hotel service personnel need to understand the needs of the leaders in advance and conduct careful and meticulous observation during the service. They cannot bring electronic transmission equipment into the venue. And they must cooperate with security personnel to do a good job of inspection. For the latter, it is necessary to fully communicate with customers, and provide the necessary equipment. Such as sound equipment, projection equipment, etc., and at the same time do a good job of corresponding catering services and provide emergency safeguards.
Product strategy for individual customer groups.
Hotel marketers need to create exclusive products for individual customer groups and provide necessary services. Provide them with books and parent-child entertainment venues that they can read. So that they can have a comfortable mood during their stay in the hotel. In short, in the digital age, there have been many new changes in hotel management activities. And the original hotel marketing strategies have also exposed some problems and need to be innovated. Driven by digital technology, the innovation of hotel marketing has many new opportunities. Hotel marketers need to make full use of digital technology to innovate hotel marketing.